A Simple Grammar Defines Activating and Repressing cis-Regulatory Elements in Photoreceptors.

ABSTRACT: Transcription factors often activate and repress different target genes in the same cell. How activation and repression are encoded by different arrangements of transcription factor binding sites in cis-regulatory elements is poorly understood. We investigated how sites for the transcription factor CRX encode both activation and repression in photoreceptors by assaying thousands of genomic and synthetic cis-regulatory elements in wild-type and Crx^-/- retinas. We found that sequences with high affinity for CRX repress transcription, whereas sequences with lower affinity activate. This rule is modified by a cooperative interaction between CRX sites and sites for the transcription factor NRL, which overrides the repressive effect of high affinity for CRX. Our results show how simpl

SUBMITTER: White MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5123866 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature